Chapter 10—God in Nature
“His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of His praise.”
Upon all created things is seen the impress of the Deity. Nature
testifies of God. The susceptible mind, brought in contact with the
miracle and mystery of the universe, cannot but recognize the working
of infinite power. Not by its own inherent energy does the earth
produce its bounties, and year by year continue its motion around
the sun. An unseen hand guides the planets in their circuit of the
heavens. A mysterious life pervades all nature—a life that sustains
the unnumbered worlds throughout immensity, that lives in the insect
atom which floats in the summer breeze, that wings the flight of the
swallow and feeds the young ravens which cry, that brings the bud to
blossom and the flower to fruit.
The same power that upholds nature, is working also in man. The
same great laws that guide alike the star and the atom control human
life. The laws that govern the heart’s action, regulating the flow of
the current of life to the body, are the laws of the mighty Intelligence
that has the jurisdiction of the soul. From Him all life proceeds. Only
in harmony with Him can be found its true sphere of action. For all
the objects of His creation the condition is the same—a life sustained
by receiving the life of God, a life exercised in harmony with the
Creator’s will. To transgress His law, physical, mental, or moral, is to
[100]
place one’s self out of harmony with the universe, to introduce discord,
anarchy, ruin.
To him who learns thus to interpret its teachings, all nature becomes
illuminated; the world is a lesson book, life a school. The unity of man
with nature and with God, the universal dominion of law, the results
of transgression, cannot fail of impressing the mind and molding the
character.
These are lessons that our children need to learn. To the little child,
not yet capable of learning from the printed page or of being introduced
to the routine of the schoolroom, nature presents an unfailing source
71